


The Fucking Prologue

by eoKingdomDom



Series: Terabitten Mute Drafts [3]
Category: Besstrashny Plamyah, Original Work
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Gen, Original Character(s), Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25768357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eoKingdomDom/pseuds/eoKingdomDom
Summary: The bit where I pretend there’s actually a context and plot to this disaster through the briefing of a military mission that sounds all epic and shit. Prepare to be disappointed.
Series: Terabitten Mute Drafts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856098
Collections: Besstrashny Plamyah





	The Fucking Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A slightly abridged version, basically sets the scene for Terabitten Mute and introduces the two protagonists and their sheer stupidity.

“Ladies! I'm glad to inform you of our situation,” an unnecessarily loud voice knocks on the walls of the bunkroom. Even though it’s a good half hour after the wake up call, nobody in the room could be fucked with such a racket disturbing their still-sleepy brains. Lieutenant Para, however, is feeling rather vehement today, and she’s always been a keen believer of the pack-mentality notion where “If I’m up, everybody’s up!” Her opinion is obviously not shared, but that's just unfortunate, because she happens to be in charge. With sleeves rolled up, her tan arms rest on the doorframe and makes her look that little bit more consuming. Her hands splay, waving for attention. Once all the drowsy eyes are on her, she projects herself.

“It’s been confirmed by scanning that the vessel the Earthers threw at us does _indeed_ contain a fancy-looking computer. Whether it’s actually an AI or not is up in the air, but still, we’re not standing to take chances. So two of you lucky fuckwits will be coming with me in the frigate to investigate and, here’s hoping, destroy it.”

“Ma’am, did they actually call it Cortana?”

“Nope, went for something stupidly ominous. Terabyte Mute.”

A few laughs flutter across the room at the ridiculous name. Terabyte fucking Mute, sounds like something I’d come up with to make a gothic impression. Let’s not question it, I make strange life choices and that’s all we need to say.

One of which is apparently casually breaking the fourth wall. Well, I did intend to. Detached narrative never really cut it for me, or at least I'm too linguistically cheap to pull it off. So yeah, now I’m here, I should probably mention a few things, because I’m thoroughly convinced you've no clue what’s happening. Like sure, mystery _can_ be intriguing. But mystery without context, well, it’s more like being dumped in a forest blindfolded, dozed up on laxatives, then expected to find somewhere private to drop your guts _and_ not plonk your ass into a nest of nettles. God, there's probably a fetish for that. But I digress.

The year is 2462, the far future. You can probably assume there’s flying cars at this point. In fact, there’s even space travel! Now of course, when I say space travel, I don’t mean warp and wormholes, I mean some good ol’ stellar travel. The farthest point of travel is the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This deed is dealt by a ship that these future humans decided to call Mothership. How beautifully original. This ship is huge, sporting a population of about four million people, or at least, that's what it's advertised to hold.

As for _why_ there's a massive space cruiser with a disgusting accumulation of humans onboard in the first place? Well, the reasons for stellar travel are fairly simple. Earth, as a whole, has become uncomfortable to live on. You know all those projections about what might happen due to how we treat the environment, well it's basically that. The overuse of plastics have flooded the seas and turned them into an unforgiving murk, roasted coal has smoked the atmosphere with a suffocating smog. The air that the planet expects us to breathe would give bonfire smoke a run for its money, and asthmatics a run for the hospital. As for the flora and fauna we all know and love? Well you might be lucky to find an actual live bird. The Earth as we know it has been pumped dry. We fucked it over.

It became evident that the cosmos was the only plausible solution, this paved the way for development of a ship poised to withstand the elements of the Solar System and, more importantly, support life for an indefinite length of time. After a century of construction, Mothership was born.

This staggering beast of a cruiser stood out from any other shuttle not just for its size, but its ecosystem too. Yep, ecosystem. A section of the ship contains molten rocks with a crust floating about on top, this is drowned in water to basically create a mini piece of Earth geology. To make this habitable, samples from the asteroid belt are taken in and melted into the magma, expelling minerals required to feed microbiological life. This works its way up the food chain as these microbes release their own cocktail of chemicals, which feed the plants, and the plants release oxygen and provide nutrition, creating something we humans can munch on. As for how possible this truly is, I’ll leave that to the people who actually _know_ what they’re talking about.

Those who live on Mothership have proclaimed themselves Astros, short for astronauts. Those who still stew on-planet are known as Earthers. These two absolutely hate each other. There's two reasons for this. See, Astros shit on Earthers the same way liberals currently trash up conservatives, and for similar reasons. The Earth is barely habitable at this point, with vegetation stripped down to levels which can no longer oxygenate the land, yet Earthers seem to be completely apathetic to this. They’re essentially homebirds, with no desire to leave the place they call home, even if it’s a shithole.

Now, if you’re a believer of the predetermination of life, this actually makes sense in context. The human race has known for centuries that they wouldn’t be able to stop the ball of industrialisation once it got rolling. The destruction of Earth was inevitable, so too was all life on it. Some Earthers tend to hold the belief that they should see the planet to its bitter end, rather than playing God and trying to live forever. Therefore, their approach to solutions is simply through the production of palliative care rather than cure. As once common creatures depleted to extinction, the Earthers decided to go makeshift. They built cyborg replacements with simple brass mechanisms, decorating them with washed-up litter, some were even adorned with the real fur of the animal. Basically, rather than actually facing the issue, they made toys to distract themselves. Astros, as the progressive strand of humanity, can’t agree with this.

The other reason for hatred is held by the Earthers that actually _did_ want to go to space. Mothership had a finite number of tickets to get onboard, and these were fought over viciously upon her launch. Social elites who could afford it got on easily, but those who couldn’t reserve their place had to fight. A population of billions competing for a ticket solely in its millions got dire really, really fast. People were renowned for stepping, quite literally, over families to get aboard. Children, being so small, got trampled into the ground. Knives and guns were rife, and when they weren’t, people were tearing each other's lips and ears off with their teeth. The world hadn’t seen such savagery since the last Black Friday sale in Currys PC World. So horrific, it became known as the Doomsday of Earth, and those who ended up left behind were quite understandably traumatised. To add to this, the anger festering within these abandoned Earthers is often disregarded by, or not taught to, the vast majority of Astros. So not only do Earthers see Astros as heartless killers, the Astros only see the Earthers as people with no desire for self-preservation. These generalisations aren’t helped by the fact that communication between the two has been cut off for the general public, only authoritative members of each side can have any kind of contact.

Typical, the human race is still divided, even in the future. This wouldn’t be a problem if both factions didn’t have similar technological advancements. Both sides have been working on artificial intelligence relentlessly, desperately slapping together machine after machine and teaching it the human tongue. This sounds fairly absurd, I know, but here’s a thought: with artificial intelligence, the creation of a human-like brain has essentially been done. If we can create a piece of software capable of holding memories, complex thought patterns and nurture-induced behaviour, then you could potentially _transfer_ the brain of a live human into this. This allows humans to take on robotic, non-respiring forms and gives us a stab at immortality. For the Earthers who live on a planet that is gradually becoming more hostile, and the Astros wanting to escape the bounds of the asteroid belt, AI software would be of utmost importance. Both sides have gotten close, but have yet to fully soften the software. Until perhaps now.

The Earthers claim to have created an individual of a machine, an ultramachine, with all its mind fitting into a one terabyte drive. Yeah, I think the FBI wants to know the location of whatever fucking compression software they’re using. The Earthers also stated that this artificial intelligence has the tools to bypass the Mothership’s security and actually begin to control the ship, with the intent to fly it into destruction. Because… why not? This ultramachine has been launched into space in an inexplicably large vessel, enroute to Mothership. Once in range, the machine should supposedly be able to assume control.

The Astros call bullshit. Still, they can’t be sure. They tried contacting the ultramachine, trusting that its artificial intelligence would enable it to communicate. There has been no answer. Amused, but still somewhat concerned, the Astros have dubbed it the Terabyte Mute.

Unresponsive, the decision to investigate it has been made advisable. This task has been dumped on Lieutenant Para and her unit. Why the authority of Mothership thought Para's unit would be in any way prepared for the likes of a mild sabotage operation is beyond me. Her unit in the military is the scum on top of the pond as far as most are concerned. The privates are fresh, ready to be skimmed from the pond's surface and slapped onto any rock the authority sees fit. You'd think that would be a great thing, except they’re all literal newbies. I’ll say retarded, for the lack of a more suiting word. You’re probably wondering why, since after all, aren’t they martially trained?

Well, yes, technically, but this is Astro Military. Imagine, if you will, a marine core built on some of the more subhuman qualities of Tumblr. Yes, I’m talking about the oversensitive, dip-dyed, pseudo-androgynous asshats with enough brain-cells to pronounce the word “patriotic”, yet not enough to know what it means. Military training a bunch of snowflakes requires a lot of leeway, and just a general cut-down of education. It’s nothing like the break-you-down-and-build-you-back-up procedure that we have, therefore, the privates aren’t afraid to speak and act in a way we would call out-of-turn. On top of that, all their battle training is dulled down immensely, with some trigger warnings in case someone feels assaulted. Many of them have never seen gore. None are prepared for the kind of horror a real fight entails. Fights can get dirty, as the animal knows no bounds.

Of course, the authority exploits this naivety to its full extent. New soldiers are disposable, and can be used as guinea pigs for operations that nobody else would embark on. Being blind to what they’re in for, these privates will loyally follow orders that could lead them to their deaths. More often than not, this is exactly what the authority will set out to do. It’s a way of weeding out the weaklings in a fashion that seems honorable. It’s said these people die for science, just say that and no Astro will challenge you. Nobody needs to tell the public that it’s actually a form of population control.

Well, what a way to introduce you to stellar society! And you’ll be glad to know that after all this info dump, Para has actually decided who she’s dragging with her on the mission.

“Ellixander! Dorothy! Get your suits together! We’ll be packing your lunches for yous, just be in Hanger 12 at nine sharp!”

“Can I have onion rings Ma'am?” no less Ellixander.

"Oh! And a fruit shoot?” Dorothy.

“Aye, if you’re good I might even give you oxygen,” Para has to stifle a laugh at her own joke, “Rest of you, dismissed!”

With that, Para darts out, not even shutting the door.

Rude.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I'll not lie, I felt like the Tumblr analogy was a bit of a risk due to how badly it could be taken. I think it goes without saying that I should clear things up.  
> By "pseudo-androgynous", I don't mean geniune non-binary individuals, I mean people who falsely identify as one to get attention. And there's nothing wrong with dip-dying, just don't be letting any shit on wish ruin your hair.


End file.
